American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1959)

Do-It-Yourself Sound Recording PART III Don’t stint when it comes to purchasing a microphone. The best is essential to top-quality recording results. By ALLEN JACOBS The Calvin Co., Inc., Kansas City, Mo. ONE OF THE ADVANTAGES of using a high-input microphone is that the greater volume of sound it delivers permits "backing-up” the volume control on the recorder; less gain is used with conse¬ quent reduction in the level of extraneous or unwanted sound. Last month we discussed here, for the edification of the small independent film producer wishing to set up his own sound recording department, the pros and cons of the various types of magnetic sound recorders, and listed the basic specifications essential to a magnetic tape or film recorder that is expected to produce professional qual¬ ity sound. On the basis of that discus¬ sion, we can assume that a choice has been made and we now have a re¬ corder. It might further be assumed that this choice would be the hardest one to make, in planning a sound depart¬ ment, and that with the acquisition of the recorder most of the major prob¬ lems automatically are solved. Unfor¬ tunately this is not the case. While the recorder is a very important and basic piece of equipment, a good magnetic recording machine does not in itself automatically guarantee the production of good sound. Still other factors are involved. One simple proof of this could be observed were you to transfer or re¬ record, using your magnetic recorder, a fine-quality wide-range disc record¬ ing of an orchestration to magnetic tape, and then compare the quality ob¬ tained with that of a live recording of a really fine orchestra. Assuming that the orchestra whose music on the com¬ mercial disc you re-recorded and the orchestra whose music you recorded “live” were comparable, the results ob¬ tained in the two recordings might well be quite different. Why? Well, if you did a reasonably careful and proper job of transferring the disc recording to tape, it probably would be difficult for you to detect any difference between the magnetic copy you made and the disc itself when both are played on good reproducers. How¬ ever, the music that you heard played by the live orchestra, and the music that you recorded of that live orchestra would probably differ in quality. In the case of the disc recording, your as¬ signment was a simple transfer of sound. The people who had made the commercial disc recording had already solved a lot of problems — choice and position of microphone, acoustics, equalization of the sound, and so on. However, when you prepared to record the live orchestra these were problems which you had to face and solve. And, unless you are a thoroughly experi¬ enced recording man, you would prob¬ ably get something other than the fin¬ est results. We might say that the point is: the recorder may be better than you are. To put it another way, the recording machine generally has a greater ability to record sound than the operator’s ability to feed qualitysound into it. What are some of the other factors involved in sound recording? Well, there’s the auxiliary equipment — microphone, pre-amplifier, cables, mixer, power supply, and so on. Then there’s the matter of acoustics — what happens to the sound before it’s picked up by the microphone. And there are some further subtleties of sound re¬ cording, the mastery of which is es Continued on Poge 53 36 AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER